Asteroid: City

Andromeda, in the back seat, said, "Dad? Do you think they found what they were looking for?"

Then the sky flickered.

Woodrow knelt beside her. "What makes you say that?" Asteroid City

The power came back on. The military men ran in circles. The sky remained stubbornly blue. The next morning, the quarantine was lifted. There was no mention of the event in any newspaper. The men in black suits took the cube and left a check for the town—a sum large enough to pave the roads and install streetlights and build a new wing on the diner. The Stargazer children were given certificates of participation. Woodrow did not win Junior Stargazer of the Year. The title went to a girl from Nebraska who had built a solar-powered marshmallow roaster. Andromeda, in the back seat, said, "Dad

From behind the bleachers, a figure emerged. It was approximately four feet tall, with a bulbous head the color of a spoiled plum, and skin that seemed to be made of cracked, dry mud. Its eyes were two vertical slits that glowed with a soft, amber light, like banked coals. It moved not by walking but by a series of short, jerky rotations, as if its joints were on backwards. It held in one three-fingered hand a small, pulsing cube. "What makes you say that